This scenario happened last Friday night.

Me:  “Want to do pizza tonight?”

Wife:  “Sure, from where?

Me:  “How about the place around the corner”

Wife:  “Ok, what do what do the reviews say?”

Boom. The next 43 seconds are spent with my wife and I scanning reviews in Facebook, Google and/or Yelp! to decide the fate of the pizza sale.

Bad news, 2.3 stars out of 5. Mentions of wrong orders or customers left waiting. Does the owner even read these?!?!

Quoting Jay-Z, “On to the next one!”

Me:  “How about the place up the road?”

Bam. Another 64 seconds are spent scanning reviews. Paying close attention since the last place had some bad reviews.

While scanning, we saw plenty of positive reviews along with 4 and 5 star ratings. And we learned it was BYOB. Score!

Good news, we got pizza!

Social Proof. Testimonials. Reviews. The digital “Word of Mouth.” By real, unbiased people. Especially those that we know.

“7 out of 10 Americans say they look at product views before making a purchase”

*source

User reviews are important to your business. They are very important for new business. They are important for E-VER-Y business. Luckily there are a few places for customers to easily leave reviews for your business like Facebook, Google, Yelp!, etc. Utilize them!

What if I don’t have any reviews?  You might have a great service or product, but the people may not know that you want reviews.

You have a few options to get reviews. First, is to simply ask for them. Send out an email (individual or super simple blast) or Facebook post or a tweet with a link(s) to where you want current customers to leave a review. Or ask them after they buy from you. Have a storefront? Put a sign up at the register.

Tried that, but not getting much traction?  Try offering something to encourage reviews. For instance, if you have low ticket items, offer a 50% discount for the next purchase or a BOGO if they leave a review. Have high ticket items? Offer a 20% discount or make it a contest for one giveaway a week where the winner is selected at random. Discounting your service is always going to be better than a gift card.

Lastly, this is a good time to check on your customer service. With good reason.

If you have any questions or ideas for reviews, let me know – I’d love to hear your thoughts.

Lastly, here’s a good, short email script I picked up from the ad skills marketing team. Use it!

Hi [Firstname],

Today marks 30 days since you bought [product name].

I was wondering if you might answer 2 short questions…

1. On a scale of 1-10 how would you rate [product name]

2. Would you refer [product name] to your friends? why?

Or you can leave a review on Facebook[link] or Google[link] or Yelp![link]

[Your Name]
Owner of [Biz}

 

For real lastly, If you want to read more of the marketing/psychology about it, kissmetrics has a good article on it – https://blog.kissmetrics.com/social-proof-factors-2/